Saint Barthélemy, Leeward Islands
Another fantastic Catacup is in the books with incredible conditions, and world class competition. While the results on the scoreboard were mixed for the US teams, enjoyment was unanimous! After four great days of racing, Franck Cammas and Matthieu Vandame were crowned Catacup 2013 champions, with Darren Bundock and Jeroen Van Leeuwen in second, and Vincent and Emmanuel Boulogne in third.
North American team results:
5. Luke Ramsay and John Casey
9. Todd Riccardi and Dalton Tebo
14. Tony Boueilh and Patrick LaRoche
22. Mike Krantz and Dave Lennard
24. Annie Gardner and Eric Witte
25. Blair Toland and Maxime Loiselle
28. Jacopo Bracco and Tripp Burd
51. Greg Retkowski and Sandor Rodolphe
55. Jessica Teunis and Sam Carter
Event recap from Sam Carter:
We made it back to Annapolis at midnight last night (26 November). It was a very unpleasant welcome, with 40 degree temperatures and rain. We immediately wanted to return to St. Barths!
We ended the regatta in DFL, but are eager to return next year. Our goal was simple, to finish every race. That was quickly hampered in Race 1, as a series of mistakes lead to disaster. To begin, our rudders have been plaguing us since we sent the boat to Florida. The light 2 finger helm of the Nacra Infusion was long gone. The boat felt better sailing around from the container, and in our practice sessions we readily gained on some Mk. 2’s in conditions from 6-12kts of breeze and 6′ waves, by really working the boat hard. Downwind though the poor helm was very noticeable, the boat felt super sitcky (like we were dragging a pig), and was not smooth to drive. In conjunction with the big waves and confused sea state, this was not a recipe for fast sailing. Anyway, race 1. We shot out of the starting line in the top 10, lost a few places upwind to the very experienced teams. Unfortunately I mis-judged a port-starboard crossing in the 4-6 ft swell near the top mark, forcing a crash tack and subsequent flip (no collision). We recovered and rounded the top mark in DFL. Picked up a total of 8 places (after breakages) on the downwind run to mark #2. We had a really nice tight rounding with speed, and had a clear air lane on starboard. Jessica wanted to tack back to the right side of the course immediately, but I voted to hold and press on ~30 more boat lengths, as we had clear air, the waves state was subsided to 2-3′ and we were sailing into building pressure. My plan was to tack before we got in the serious lee of the island, tack across the bay into the land created lift and pick up some more boats. I was in the middle of explaining said strategy when we saw the impending doom. A local team had tacked onto port and hadn’t cleared their lane, i.e they underestimated our speed and angle (0.5 kts faster and 10 degrees higher than them). We had no time to do much of anything but sail as fast and has high as possible. They attempted to duck in under 3 boat lengths and t-boned us right in front of the rear crossbeam while reaching at approximately 15 kts.
The local fiberglass guy took a look when we got back to the beach, and said it would take 5 days. The team that hit us convinced him to do a quicker repair in about 6 hours Friday morning. He did an excellent job, but in hindsight we should have let him do a full repair and hang out with race committee for the rest of the event.
By Friday afternoon we had the boat back on the water, with the rudders even worse off than before (bent crossbar, broken port upper casting replaced, bent port tiller arm, no spares on island). Saturday dawned bright and early. 4th race of the regatta. We had a good upwind leg, then lost about 20 boats downwind. We had no speed. After the race, I noticed the starboard hull was taking on a significant amount of water. The (damaged) port hull was nearly dry!! I bailed for 15 minutes, and we decided to do the around the island race, since the breeze was under 15 kts, waves not too hideous, we had support boats and I’ve sailed further on leaky starboard hull than we were going. Again, great start, but our upwind boat speed was getting lower and lower as we sailed more and more upwind. It didn’t get better, but we picked up one or two boats double wire spin reaching. Lost most of them on the long port tack to the finish. Still, the island was gorgeous!! We ended the day by fixing the split in the starboard hull.
The final day of sailing started very rough for team Slippery When Wet. Jessica was suffering from food poisoning Sunday morning, and wasn’t keeping water in her stomach. For the first race of the day, we found a great spot coming in on port with about half the top teams, while the rest of the fleet was on starboard and the top 5 boats were heading downwind with kites up, in 18 kts of breeze. Jessica found an awesome layline right behind Annie Gardner and Eric Witte, our villa mates for the week. Unfortunately a wildcat decided bombing into the mark, right at the mark, on port was also a great idea (we ducked about 10 boats to avoid a collision). They were tacking to avoid starboard traffic, were in the middle of there tack when we saw them and did all we could to avoid a collision (we could not go up or tack as there were boats above, and we were laying the mark). Collision and serious damage to the Wildcat occurred, our starboard hull leak opened up some but we were OK. Anyway about 50 boat lengths downwind of the course, once again I mis-called the layline and Jessica decided it was time to gybe back onto starboard with me on the wire, right being Enrique. His crew saw the whole thing and informed us it was unnecessary. Anyway, boat back up, time to catch some boats. This was extremely tough. The wire was pretty much out of the question (saw Dave and Mike sitting on the boat), as the confused sea state in-between the islands was worse than I’ve ever seen. Jessica was not comfortable driving with the borked up rudders, and it was faster getting my 190lb ass onto the rear crossbeam. I took the kite and did what I could to drive with the rudders and use the kite to bear us off when they stalled. We avoided any flips, switched when it became a close reach and really got the Infusion trucking on the way to Pain de Sucre, our rounding mark right outside Gustavia. We played it smart and caught a few boats, despite the boat really slowing down when the weather hull hit the water (clearly our rudder alignment was waaay out). Then we got hit with the biggest puff I have been hit with in the past decade of sailing, and the biggest puff I have ever been hit with on a catamaran. I was wired up with Jessica driving from the rear beam, kite down but contemplating a hoist. Both bows stuffed. I took a trip round the forestay, and when my back hit the water it sounded like thunder. Jessica slammed her right elbow into the mast. We managed to get the boat upright about 5 boat lengths before the rocks. Jessica wanted to finish the race. When I saw team Ronstan heading for Gustavia and the container, I vetoed any race finishing ideas and we hit the beach. An hour later Jessica was back at the Villa, in bed trying to hold down water, juice anything. Fortunately she recovered and was fine Monday, and I had managed to get Slippery When Wet back in the container with much thanks to Mike and Dave, and Tripp and Jacobo.
I cannot say enough good things about this event. Despite our lack of French, the organizers were extremely nice and gracious of our attendance. They sent us out with one of the mark boats during the races our boat was broken, the drivers were absolutely fantastic, providing fresh croissants for breakfast, and sandwiches for lunch. Nikki beach is a great spot for hosting the parties and the boats. The team that hit us could not have been nicer, arranging the temporary repair and bringing us champagne. Every team we met was simply fantastic, and we hope to sail in Europe with some in the next few years. We cannot wait to get our boat back to fighting strength and return next year to accomplish our goal of finishing every race. Thank you again to Catacup, our villa host Maria, Eric and Annie for their stories and constant moral support, and Eric’s excellent rum drinks, Todd R. for staying on top of the container, Max for always staying positive and being an impromptu translator for us, Dalton Tebo for providing sweet go pro footage and laughter, and the entire U.S team for making this event a reality for North American sailors.